As Published In August 2005

Corporate Responsibility Benefits Your Bottom Line

In the wake of scandals revolving around Enron and WorldCom, enterprises are facing significant compliance regulations. But they're finding that corporate responsibility has a positive effect on the bottom line.

A study from the Economist Intelligence Unit finds that 85 percent of executives and investors rank corporate responsibility as a key consideration in investment decisions. The study surveyed 136 executives across numerous industries, as well as 65 investors, to examine the influence of corporate responsibility in the global business community.

That percentage is almost double the figure from a similar survey five years ago. Three critical aspects for executives surveyed are ethical behavior of staff, good corporate governance, and transparency of corporate dealings. For institutional investors, transparency is even more important; nearly 70 percent of respondents said it was one of the three most critical elements of corporate responsibility, followed by high standards of corporate governance (62 percent) and ethical behavior of staff (46 percent). Additionally, 84 percent of executives and investors believe corporate-responsibility practices could positively affect a company's bottom line.

"Executives take a pretty hardheaded view of corporate responsibility," says Nigel Holloway, director of executive services for the Americas at the Economist Intelligence Unit. "They feel strongly that ethical business conduct helps sustain their company."

Publicizing Environmental, Social, Sustainable Efforts

One-quarter of global Fortune 500 companies produce a report on their environmental, social, or sustainability efforts. Different factors are driving corporate responsibility as a part of business operations, including the erosion of trust in large corporations, the globalization of business, the corporate-governance movement, and competitive pressures.

"Corporate responsibility and accountability have expanded beyond community involvement and into the boardroom," says Steven Miranda, vice president of applications development at Oracle. "This study clearly illustrates the financial ramifications for companies that adhere to strict corporate-governance strategies to become more efficient, transparent, and secure in business operations."

The study also examines what companies are doing to adopt corporate-responsibility initiatives. Highlighted in the study are definitions of corporate responsibility and what it means in relation to similar practices such as corporate citizenship and accountability. How can your organization profit from this study? Download your free copy of The Importance of Corporate Responsibility.

Project Management Winners

Acronym Soup
First there was the CEO, then the CIO, then the CSO. And now there's a new entrant—the CPO, or chief project officer. A survey reported in Chief Project Officer magazine reveals that projects suffering from lack of focus—including essential planning, scheduling, and monitoring functions—are prevalent in most organizations. Of the senior project-management practitioners responding to the survey, half reported that their organizations perform project-control functions average at best. To meet this challenge, more organizations are removing the intensive planning and controls work from the project manager and building these responsibilities into a formal project-controller position. Establishing the role of project controller is proving to have a positive impact on project performance and success rates. Learn more at www.chiefprojectofficer.com.

Supply Chain Smarts

Four Steps to Save Your Capital Projects

Last year, capital spending topped US$500 billion in the United States. And for companies in capital-intensive industries—energy, communications, and automotive—capital projects are critical to profitability but fraught with overruns and schedule slippage. One potential salve, according to global consultancy Booz Allen Hamilton, is to apply supply-chain-management techniques to management of capital projects.

According to the firm, successful supply-chain management involves implementing strategies to efficiently supervise internal and external lead times, deploy the supply base, and optimize inventory and logistics globally. With only minor tweaking, the same can be said of capital-projects management. What can you do to better manage your capital projects?

1. Find commonalities across all capital expenditures; avoid fixating on the unique. Organize plans by services and materials needed to complete projects, by regions, and by potential suppliers.

2. Drive design modularization and standardization. Create standards for components and subsystems of all projects to ensure that most equipment is designed with the maximum use of recurring processes.

3. Leverage relationships with contractors and suppliers. Prequalify them, develop long-term relationships, and involve them in project planning and design standardization. If performance goals aren't met, reevaluate the partnership.

4. Deploy adequate organization and governance processes. Develop capabilities at the corporate level to handle activities common to all projects through a leaner support infrastructure for procurement and contract management.

Oracle OpenWorld

Oracle in One Place

Oracle OpenWorld is the premiere conference for Oracle customers and partners. This year, Oracle OpenWorld welcomes PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Retek customers to San Francisco, with presentations specifically for them.

• The Information-Driven Enterprise: What's the right approach to sharing information companywide? Find out why the right information architecture can help you meet your corporate objectives.
• Oracle Fusion: Hear the latest information about the combined Oracle and PeopleSoft product of the future.
• PeopleSoft and JD Edwards World Customers: Find hundreds of sessions dedicated to the latest PeopleSoft applications and technologies, including the new features and benefits of PeopleSoft 8.9. JD Edwards World customers will benefit from a focused two-day program designed specifically for their needs.
• Retek Customers: Find retail-focused content, including a series of Retek sessions.
• Customer Data Hub: Learn how Oracle technology can give you a single view of your customers.
• Industries Solutions: Oracle has experts from your industry who connect best practices with technology to keep your business competitive.
• Oracle for Small and Midsize Business: Learn more about specially priced and configured products—built for the unique needs of small and midsize businesses.

Register by September 16 and Save $200

Oracle OpenWorld takes place September 17-22. The price of the preregistration full-conference package is US$1,950. To register, go to oracle.com/openworld.

Taking Flight

If you like the idea of private air travel, the Marquis Jet Card offers a program that can have you flying at a friendlier price than you might imagine. "We provide access to NetJets, the world's No. 1 aviation product and service, in short-term, bite-size increments," explains Randy Brandoff, vice president of marketing at Marquis Jet. Clients get access to NetJets' fleet of aircraft in prepaid 25-hour blocks of time, with no long-term commitment. "It's like buying a prepaid phone card," he adds. "Over the last 20 or 30 years, there were only two ways to fly privately," Brandoff explains. "One was to buy your own aircraft, which was a multimillion-dollar commitment." The other option was to charter from owners when they weren't using their planes.

"Your jet is available in any of up to 5,000 airports in North America and Europe," says Brandoff. As for the price tag, a 25-hour card, ranging from $109,900 to $339,900, puts you on aircraft such as the Cessna Citation V Ultra or the Raytheon Hawker 400XP. "If we can't provide you with the aircraft you select, we'll give you a complimentary upgrade, and you fly wherever you want to go."

NetJets
Fast Facts
www.netjets.com

• The average NetJets aircraft is four years old, about one-fourth the age of the average charter aircraft in North America.
• The average NetJets pilot has 9,000 hours of flight experience, flies a single type of aircraft, and undertakes 18 to 23 days of training per year.

ThinkQuest Named Best Internet Site For Kids

The Oracle Education Foundation's ThinkQuest Web site, which has challenged students all over the world to develop educational Web sites through its annual ThinkQuest competition, has been named Best Internet Site for Kids by Common Sense Media. "We are honored that a strong children's-advocacy organization like Common Sense Media would recognize ThinkQuest as one of the top educational Web resources available for children today," says Jim Ballard, vice president of Oracle Education Foundation programs. "For nearly a decade, ThinkQuest has been a leader in promoting innovative ways for students to learn using the internet, from our global Web-authoring competitions to our hosting of a world-renowned library of student-created educational content."

>> PARTNER NEWS

Focus on Better Processes

StreamServe Eases Kinks in EMS's Supply Chain

EMS, one of the world's largest manufacturers of clad metals, is benefiting from reduced payment cycle times and improved processes, thanks to the partnership offering provided by Oracle and StreamServe, Inc. "We're tightly integrated with Oracle, and we allow users to view StreamServe functionality through the concurrent manager capabilities provided in Oracle Applications," explains StreamServe's North American president, George Bloom. StreamServe BCP, which integrates with Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning, provides EMS with a universal system for handling printed output produced through e-commerce transactions. StreamServe BCP automates the fax and e-mail delivery of purchase orders and invoices, enabling EMS to provide partners and suppliers with information in real time.

"We developed a Web portal based on the StreamServe platform," says Jim Calarese, applications manager for EMS. "This allows us to manage our supplier-managed inventory program from our customer sites. In terms of time and efficiency, this combined solution has helped us eliminate manual tracking, plus cut down on problems associated with physical inventories." According to Calarese, EMS has also simplified its user interface and decreased the amount of time it takes customers to pay for products.

Princeton Softech Delivers Data Archiving Solutions

Oracle partner Princeton Softech specializes in solutions for managing complex relational data. "When Oracle acquired PeopleSoft, it was a very good thing for Princeton Softech, because we're the only database archiving partner that actually supports all of Oracle's ERP lines," says Jim Lee, Princeton Softech's vice president of product line management. "We've been in the PeopleSoft market for quite a while and have more archiving customers in PeopleSoft than anyone else." To that end, Princeton Softech has recently released extensions that fit neatly not only into PeopleSoft solutions but also into JD Edwards and Retek solutions.

"With our archiving solutions, we've added a foundation that allows a customer to archive data from any application," says Lee. "If a customer is performing processes one way in a general ledger, why would it want to do it differently for accounts payable or human resources?"

AppWorx Brings Out the Best in Retek

Oracle partner AppWorx offers event-driven enterprise scheduling solutions for automating business processes across a vast spectrum of software applications and platforms—all while processing transactions from real-time application data. The AppWorx Enterprise Application is compatible with both Oracle Database 10g and Oracle E-Business Suite, as well as with solutions provided by Oracle subsidiary Retek.

AppWorx provides automated nonstandard job submission, such as general ledger import and post, and materials request planning, eliminating custom coding and manual job submissions. It also extends the functionality of Oracle Concurrent Manager (a workload management utility) to offer sophisticated "if-then" logic, custom calendaring, and automatic error checking.

Xpaseo Tunes Into Rapid RFID Deployment

Oracle and Xpaseo, a leading provider of RFID appliances, have formed a partnership to offer an integrated software and hardware solution for managing RFID deployments. Xpaseo has begun embedding components of sensor-based services into its XGate devices to help companies implement and manage operations and reduce the total cost of ownership of RFID deployments.

The offering enables companies to implement an RFID or sensor network using their existing investments in enterprise software. "Organizations are challenged with the full lifecycle of RFID management, from the RFID tag readers on the network through the data in the enterprise systems," says Chellappa Dhanukodi, Xpaseo's CEO. "Our collaboration with Oracle will help customers gain greater control of nearly every aspect of their RFID systems and allow them to scale as they bring more facilities online with RFID."

Intel Transforms RFID and Sensor-Based Solutions to Enable the Real-Time Enterprise

Oracle and Intel development and technical teams are working together to further optimize RFID- and sensor-based solutions based on a common service-oriented enterprise (SOE). While SOA (service-oriented architecture) is an architectural style whose goal is to achieve loose coupling among interacting software agents, SOE is a model for architecting software and IT infrastructure.

The companies will work to provide solutions that facilitate data management from the edge of the network into enterprise information systems and across trading communities. The collaboration allows better information management within the virtual enterprise, enabling increased customer satisfaction, profitability tracking, and revenue flow.